Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Richard Cohen on UK journalist's call for boycott of Israel

Richard Cohen, who often has some very critical things to say about Israel, has written a spot-on column about the vote by UK journalists for a boycott of Israel. As I noted earlier on this blog, such a decision -- which ignores any responsibility on the part of the Palestinians and ignores the wrongdoings of the Sudan, Zimbabwe, China, etc. etc. -- smacks of antisemitism.

Ironically -- or maybe not so - a BBC journalists was kidnapped in Gaza and has not been released by the Palestinian group that took him. The journalists don't mention this...

Cohen writes:

The British journalists say they are moved by the plight of the Palestinian people, and they are right to be. But the misery of a Gazan or a West Banker is not solely Israel's doing. The government of Gaza is the political arm of a terrorist organization, and if the West Bank is suffering -- and it is -- the cause is not only Israeli land lust but also a morbid Israeli fear of terrorism. British journalists would no doubt approve similar measures if London's city buses had not once but repeatedly been blown to smithereens by passengers with the exact fare and belts of explosives.

So what explains this fury at Israel -- and only at Israel? What explains this need to denounce, to boycott?

[....]

The British journalists, like the academics before them, dare to tread where an army of goons has gone before. If they do not recognize the ember of anti-Semitism still glowing within them, they ought to park themselves before a mirror and ask why, of all the nations, they single out Israel for reprimand and obloquy. This business of assigning to Jews a special burden, for seeing in them more of mankind's bad qualities and less of its good, has a dark and ugly pedigree: the Chosen People, again -- and again in the wrong way.